Where Gallifrey Burned
by raggedybluebox
Summary: A rough finale of the Time War and what haunts the Doctor - third time trying to upload (because I am not IT skilled and keep making mistakes). The Doctor has had more regenerations than you think, so in this context it would probably mean that Eleven was the last one! :O!


The sky was on fire. Tongues of white-hot flame shot down from the amber sky and consumed squadrons after squadrons of Time Lords, and so many others. All around, the dead lay wasted. Existence was ending. Everything was ending.

Somewhere, the man we now call the Doctor could hear her – his granddaughter – screaming out in terror. An agonised, bloody scream that ripped his contaminated brain to pieces. But did he run to her? Rescue her from the torrents of darkness that soared and prowled from every angle of the smoking city, and ripped great gashes in both Gallifrey and Time? No. From the deepest, darkest depths of his twin hearts, he was taken over by an overpowering fear. It made his blood run channels of ice, made his veins close up, and his mind think only, _I'm scared._ His child's voice, staring into the Time Vortex, was echoed here.

His granddaughter continued to scream. He couldn't locate the source; after all, so many people were screaming. Millions upon millions of voices more prominent, more everlasting than the stars. He would always hear them screaming; they tormented his mind.

They had fought until there were only Time-Lords and Daleks left; they had battled it out, long and hard, until only those who could not be so easily destroyed remained. The great Time Warrior heard his granddaughter scream again as he fell to his knees, unable to stand the sound any longer, yet unable to find her. Unable to save her. His limbs ached. He'd run out of tears – he'd lost enough for the rest of time, as far as he was concerned. His regal armour had been stripped piece by piece. Golden strips flickered across his body; his second regeneration, rushing to take him over. Replace his identity.

Somewhere behind him, a child's footsteps echoed, and he felt a shudder of despair rocket through him. Don't come over here, he thought to himself. Not here. Hide. _HIDE._

'_Exterminate! Exterminate!'_

He turned, alarmed, in time to see his daughter throw herself in front of the child. His own daughter. Though completely different, there was no mistaking her. And the child was his granddaughter.

And then it rolled – a large sphere, silvery grey. It stopped just close to them; he recognised the weapon and shouted, 'NO!' It was an agonised sound; he shielded his face as the ball ruptured, and engulfed the last of his bloodline in heat and fire and shrapnel. Then they were gone – they were both gone.

The Doctor saw the source of the bomb slide from behind the smoke; coppery metal skin, silver bulges protruding from its casing. Slowly he stood, the rage of the Time Lord filling every atom of his body. It was a white-hot fury that coursed through him as though alive, blinding his vision in a sea of heat.

The Dalek's ice-blue eye surveyed him, and it rattled forwards, almost seeming to be laughing. Its dented head swivelled and it started to fire, with what could be described as glee.

_We shouldn't be going to war, _His former self had argued, at the countless councils. _We should teach these Daleks compassion._

The Doctor opened his arms wide and embraced death with a war cry that would have chilled the bones of Sontaran. For any damaged survivors, they saw the greatest hero of the Time War run straight through the shots of the Dalek, grasp its head in both hands and yell out his own name. That single cry created an explosion so vast that it refuses to this day to be entirely sealed by the Time Lock; it still whispers inside black holes, still vibrates down solar waves…just the traces that only the Doctor would hear. The Dalek did not have time to scream for mercy. It was utterly torn apart – golden light blasted from the Doctor's body, burning every enemy within a mile radius on the spot. All the agony, all the pain, all the rage, combined with the regeneration energy that poured out of him, melting the ground into a hard charred mass.

The Doctor regenerated. But when there was nothing left of the single Dalek that had once stood before him, he heard the horns of new enemy waves. The Doctor's whole body shook with grief and terror, and he could not stand to face another Dalek. Instead he fled, abandoning his kin.

Far away on a black, starred canvas, the Doctor replayed the last memories of Gallifrey before shutting them out forever. At the same time the Time Lock sealed, and, in an act of cowardice, the Doctor left his planet to burn into nothingness.


End file.
